


imprints

by orphan_account



Series: Soulmates AU [1]
Category: Marvel
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-02
Updated: 2020-03-02
Packaged: 2021-02-27 23:53:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22984330
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Tony watches the shimmer of gold fade off Pepper's finger tips as she accepts the folder from Happy.They have a wedding date fixed in July.He wonders how long does he have to wait for his.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Tony Stark
Series: Soulmates AU [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1651798
Comments: 6
Kudos: 162





	imprints

The first time they touch, it's metal on metal.

The sound of it echoes with a sickening clang in the old Hydra bunker.

Tony blasts Bucky Barnes' metal arm off of his shoulder, takes a shield across his arc reactor and he lies for death to greet him in the whisper of Siberian cold.

It doesn't.

So he stands back up, paints that fake smile across his face again and he sets to down the path designed for him by him - the futurist that he is.

He compromises with a price, loses his pride in one or two places - he rights the wrongs in the Accords so the Rogues can consider to return.

He calls Wakanda, he sends Shuri some designs - he knows how it felt when Obi yanked the reactor off its core.

He doesn't want to be Bucky Barnes' Obidiah Stane

-

The second time they touch, it's skin on metal.

Barnes says sorry and Tony says, "No worries, never liked the old man anyways."

"Then it's for your mom."

"Think I set the equation right when I blasted your arm off of your shoulder, Tastee Freeze"

-

Tony watches the shimmer of gold fade off Pepper's finger tips as she accepts the folder from Happy.

They have a wedding date fixed in July.

He wonders how long does he have to wait for his.

He's not proud of it, but he has an incomplete algorithm sitting in his folder to help people find their soulmates.

He has a whole speech attributed to it. Stories of his yearnings and waiting.

Of hopes lost and dreams punctured by reality.

They're all wrapped in comedy, he's pretty sure they'll laugh at it.

But he cannot bring himself to finish the algorithm.

Maybe not in this lifetime. not in the one where he's sinned enough and perhaps the idea of Tony Stark being their soulmate will make one cringe - except for the money he'd bring in.

It's always about the money anyway.

-

"You're not talking," Barnes interrupts the steady rhythm of him and his tools as Tony works on fixing the new arm on him.

"What's the point?" Tony grumbles under his breath.

He saw T'challa and Nakia - gold wrapped around their fingers up to their wrists where they were touching - and now he has trouble trying to keep his breakfast in his stomach.

Yet another reminder to who he is - an anomaly.

May as well he marries the future, vow his life for her, stop the aching waiting entirely.

\- he's never gonna meet his soulmate if he doesn't _have_ one anyway.

"You _always_ talk" Barnes presses.

Tony drops the tools and sinks into his chair, "And _you_ always don't," he comments wearily, carding greasy fingers through his hair.

He's forgotten he's dressed propertoday.

Suit and tie with dress shoes and hairspray with hair mousse for the extra shine.

He's ruining them all.

"You got grease on your hair" Barnes says, grey eyes twinkling like he's itching to do something about it, "And above your collar -,"

"There," he points out softly when Tony reaches for it absent-mindedly.

Barnes clucks his tongue disapprovingly as Tony pulls back his hand, checking and realising that he'd just used the grease laden one to clean and now he probably has a large greasy hand-print on his neck.

He's mulling about life and the injustice when Barnes startles him by lurching forward.

"There," he grunts as he wipes below Tony's ear with his flesh fingers and the world stops in that exact second.

Tony's gasp echoes through the room as Barnes' eyes widen and there, right then, everything soars.

_High._

"You -," he grabs for Barnes' hand from his jugular, his own greasy fingers wrapping around Barnes' relatively clean ones as Tony watches in daze - gold shimmer and black grease colliding, spreading and _swirling._

"I waited for a century for you" Barnes whispers a breath away from him.

Tony snorts, his heart feeling all swollen in his chest, making it too hard for him to breathe.

At the same time, it's confusingly easier for him to breathe.

The air crisper, fresher, like it's a whole new world and he cannot for the life of him, let go of Barnes' flesh fingers.

"I'm done waiting" he says, tearing his eyes away from the hypnotizing golden swirls to finally meet his soulmate's - he has a soulmate! - eyes.

Bucky Barnes smiles, his hand in Tony's giving a promising squeeze "I'm done waiting too, if you'll have me."

Whatever doubts Bucky Barnes has in is mind is then wiped clean when Tony leans in and kisses him. 

"Gladly."


End file.
